1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an air purifier that purifies taken-in air and blows out the air together with charged particles.
2. Description of Related Art
The air in a room contains various substances that may be undesirable or toxic for a human body, such as dust, pollen, cigarette smoke, exhaled breath and the like. In recent years, particularly, dwelling facilities have highly air-tight structures, allowing toxic substances to stay inside a room. Moreover, it is not easy to naturally ventilate a room by opening windows in areas with heavy air pollution or at homes and offices with patients suffering from pollen allergy. Thus, an air purifier having a function of purifying the air through a filter that cleans the air in a room has widely been used.
An air purifier having a humidifying function has also been commercialized for adjusting the humidity of the air to be more comfortable while purifying the air. In such an air purifier, the air cleaned by passing through a filter unit is humidified by passing through a humidification filter.
Furthermore, an air purifier provided with a charged particle generator generating positively-charged particles of H+ (H2O)n (n is a natural number) and negatively-charged particles of O2− (H2O)m (m is a natural number) has also been commercialized, which blows out charged particles together with the taken-in air to inactivate fungi, germs and the like floating in the air.
A conventional technique proposes air purifier provided with two airflow paths that respectively take in the air from different inlets and blow out from different outlets directed upward. In the conventional air purifier, a humidification filter is disposed in one of the airflow paths for humidifying the air and blowing it out, while a charged particle generator is disposed in the other one of the airflow paths to blow out the air including the charged particles. Each of the two airflow paths is provided with an air blower, which is so configured that the air volume of the air therefrom can be controlled independently. This allows the air purifier to independently perform the control for humidifying the air and the control for purifying the air.
A conventional technique proposes air purifier in which air is taken in from one inlet to an airflow path by blowing the air with one air blower, the taken-in air passes through a cleaning filter, and thereafter the air including charged particles generated by a charged particle generator is blown out from different outlets. The outlets of the airflow paths in the air purifier are comprised of a top outlet directed upward and a bottom outlet directed forward but slightly tilted upward. The air purifier is able to effectively eliminate germs by blowing out the air including charged particles in the upward and forward directions.